Ely and Ravi Round the World

Wednesday 27 July 2017 In the morning Alex had prepared us the best pancakes on the planet, she had gone to the local market in the morning, bought fresh berries and made these absolutely delicious pancakes, when combined fresh honey and fab maple syrup the pancakes were divine. So well stocked up we went off to meet Maida, our Santiagan friend. Alex's pancakes She had arranged to take us on a walking tour through the interesting parts of Toronto. The first place that she'd love to spend time was the Toronto Reference Library - a modern design.  It had 5 floors, with spaces designed to read, have meetings, study and even spaces for children. It also had a coffee shop too. It was a cool place. Toronto Reference Library, 798 Yonge Street  Then we walked through the a really posh part of Toronto, through Lawerence Park and Yorkville - where they have very luxurious apartments and quite a few showbiz personalties - like Drake, Mike Myers and Keanu Reeves, apparentl...

Tuesday 26 July 2016 We got up and prepared the backpacks, ate breakfast before our departure to Toronto. As the train wasn't leaving until 15:30, we a few hours to kill so we went for a walk along the Rideau Canal and Landsdowne Park. It was a lovely morning , sun shining and the canal and the pathway was teeming with activity - ducks, boats, kayaks and people walking their dogs. Something that caught our attention was that there are no stray dogs anywhere, and outside some houses people had put water and cookies for dogs being walked by their owners, Off to Toronto a five hour journey. Although we've been to Toronto before , we were going to catch up with good friends and family. We we staying with Theo and Alex, who we first met 4 years ago. They were our couchsurfing hosts on our first visit. They have become our friends and we were looking forward to seeing with them. We were also going to see Maida, a friend from Santiago who is now living in Toronto and...

25  July 2016 Claire kindly let us use her car and off we went to explore Montreal for the day. We headed east from Ottawa, 180km to Montreal. Montréal is the largest city in Canada's Québec province, whose official language is French. So as we approached the city all the signage was in French with no English translation. Montreal is set on an island in the Saint Lawrence River and named after Mt. Royal, the a hill at its heart. So the first thing we did was to park as close as we could and walked up to the  to the summit to get a birds eye view of the city. The path up to the summit was beautiful, lined with trees and flowers. The path up was full of people who running, jogging, and exercising. The weather was not too good with a light drizzle but it was welcome relief from the humidity and heat. From the viewing point at the summit we had a spectacular view of Montreal. There is a a giant cross at the summit as well and we foolishly walked there to have a look and...

24 July 2016  We stayed the night at Tim's  & Kirstin's house and all the previous nights drinking did not bode well for an early start as Ryan had to get to work..on a Sunday! They work him hard.  So on the road at 8:45 am and it was breakfast on the go from Tim Hortons and back to Ottawa. So poor Ryan dropped us back at the apartment and it was a day to recover until of course we were off again in the evening for a barbi at Claire's mum's (Corinne) house.  When we got to Corrine's Ely prepared Corrine's and Claire's favourite drink - pisco sour.  Both Peru and Chile claim the cocktail Pisco Sour to be their national drink, which has sparked an ongoing dispute about its truthful owner. Who is the rightful owner of the much loved Pisco Sour?  Pisco is a   South American   brandy made from grapes supposedly first grown in Peru by the   Spaniards . Currently, these grapes are being grown in regions of both Chile and Peru; the two...

23 July 2016 We have just about caught up on sleep and got over the jet lag, but still getting up early. It was a Saturday and Ryan had gone off to work early.  A full day awaited us after Ryan got back at midday So Claire and us started off the day by heading to Kettleman's for some bagel breakfast.  http://www.kettlemansbagels.ca/menu/   Check out the menu to salivate.          http://www.kettlemansbagels.ca/menu/ After a fat boys breakfast it was nearly time to hook up with Ryan and head off to The 1000 Islands. Ryan is a manager at Enterprise Car Hire in Ottawa and so picked us up in a snazzy Ford Explorer , all jazzed up with the latest gizmos. In fact we didn't sus out some of the fancy stuff available until we got back to Ottawa.  Anyway off we went and got there about mid afternoon. We had a spot of lunch at one of the boat tour joints near Gananoque, Ontario. Then onto a boat for a gentle cruise arou...